MSI GT62VR 7RE
IS MSI’S REAL-WORLD GRAN TURISMO GAMING LAPTOP AS FAST AS IT SOUNDS?
THE GT62VR 7RE Dominator Pro from MSI is the dictionary definition of a gaming laptop; it’s powerful, pricy and about as aesthetically appealing as the wrong end of a server room. Blanketed by MSI’s trademark brushed metal veneer on the lid and keyboard surround, the GT62 chassis switches to lighter, cheaper structural plastic everywhere else, helping to reduce the weight of this already heavy gaming unit. Attached to the top of that girthy 4cmthick body is a responsive and well spaced-out SteelSeries membrane keyboard and a reasonably pleasant-feeling trackpad equipped with no-nonsense bucktoothed left and right click buttons. While the three USB 3.0 ports, SD card reader, single USB 2.0 and multiple audio outputs line the edges of the unit, the four-pin 19V/11.8A DC power input, Ethernet connection and video outputs (HDMI, USB 3.1 and DisplayPort) have been relegated to the back — indicating that the GT62 is best suited to remaining stationary on a desk.
Prioritising power over portability, this 3kg beast packs in some serious components with the latest seventh-gen Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU and enough fans to keep this power hungry setup at a comfortable temperature. The only other laptop we’ve tested with that GTX 1070 GPU is Gigabyte’s P57x V6, which pushes a near identical set of components, but based on Intel’s sixth-gen tech, and goes for about $2,799. Backed up by 16GB of DDR4 RAM, MSI’s GT62VR 7RE actually considerably outpaced the P57x V6’s PCMark 8 Home and Work scores of 4,007 and 4,930, with the MSI pumping out lofty results of 5,017 and 5,384 (respectively) in these general-performance tests. These scores are notably more than the 10% iterative performance boost you’d expect when comparing against the P57x V6’s sixthgen CPU and actually push well past anything else we’ve tested.
Also neat is that the 1080p IPS display here offers G-Sync, although only at a refresh rate of up to 60Hz — that means you can get buttery-smooth visuals, although they won’t come with the super-responsive feel that high refresh-rate 120Hz/144Hz desktop monitors can give. What’s also a little disappointing is that, despite those near top-shelf components, this laptop didn’t perform quite as well in gaming as we’d hoped.
In The Division and Tomb Raider benchmarks on 1080p Ultra settings, the GT62VR got averages of 66.5 and 262.7fps, surpassing the P57x V6’s respective framerates of 60.1 and 213.9. However, we saw some wobbly results in both Far Cry Primal and the intensive Metro: Last Light, where the MSI was anywhere from 15–50% slower in some tests. Despite troubleshooting the issue for multiple hours, triple-checking test settings and reinstalling drivers, the problem persisted — and we were still trying to get to the bottom of it with MSI at the time we went to print.
Moreover, with a pretty meagre 1 hour and 20 minute battery lifespan in PCMark 8’s Conventional Work battery life test and acceptable (but not exactly class-leading) max CPU and GPU temperatures of 91ºC and 81ºC under load, there are more than a few niggles.
If you want to play newer titles on Ultra settings at 60fps, you’ll need to be willing to suck up the price and portability sacrifices that come with that powerful GTX 1070 GPU. Unfortunately, the GT62VR 7RE has more than its fair share of sacrifices and though the unadvertised G-Sync panel is a nice perk, it’s an expensive one — and for us, it’s not enough to justify the additional $300 you’ll pay over its Gigabyte competition.